The apostolate of the Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, our merciful Mother, is celebrating the Jubilee Year of Mercy by coordinating Visitations of the Divine Mercy Image. The image will visit parishes throughout the country for Eucharistic Celebrations and to perform the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
Our apostolate has been doing a similar work for the past 24 years, with Visitations of the Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to parishes throughout the country.
Pope Francis said in his Angelus address on January 11, 2015, “There is so much need of mercy today, and it is important that the lay faithful live it and bring it into different social environments. Go forth! We are living in the age of mercy, this is the age of mercy.”
Then, in his 2015 Lenten Message, the Holy Father said, “How greatly I desire that all those places where the Church is present, especially our parishes and our communities, may become islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference!”
Our apostolate is responding to Pope Francis’ call to “go forth!” to bring mercy to our parishes and communities so that they may become what Pope Francis calls, “islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference!”
We do this by training Parish Teams to prepare and plan their parish and community for mercy with the Visitations, in cooperation with their pastors.
The Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy
At a Penance Service on March 13, 2015, Pope Francis announced an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. He said, “No one can be excluded from God’s mercy.”
He announced that the Year of Mercy would begin on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and continue through November 20, 2016, the feast of Christ the King. The biblical theme of the year, he said, is, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
In his announcement, the pope said, “As the Apostle Paul reminds us, God never ceases to show the richness of His mercy throughout the ages. I am convinced that the whole Church will find in this Jubilee the joy needed to rediscover and make fruitful the mercy of God, with which all of us are called to give consolation to every man and woman of our time.”
Regarding America, Pope Francis later said, “There has been holiness in America — much holiness. May a powerful gust of holiness sweep through all the Americas during the coming extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.”
He prayed that “the life of our American continent may be rooted ever more deeply in the Gospel it has received; (and) that Christ may be ever more present in the lives of individuals, families, peoples and nations, for the greater glory of God.” (May 2, 2015).
The Importance of the Sacrament of Confession
Pope Francis said that the doors of the Church “are wide open so that all those who are touched by grace can find the certainty of forgiveness.” He stressed the need to accept God’s mercy, particularly through sacramental Confession. He illustrated his point at the Penance Service by making his own confession, then hearing the confessions of other penitents.
The pope spoke about how an understanding of God’s boundless mercy leads the faithful to confession and repentance. He said, “To be touched with tenderness by His hand and shaped by His grace allows us, therefore, to approach the priest without fear for our sins, but with the certainty of being welcomed by Him in the name of God, and understood notwithstanding our miseries. Coming out of the confessional, we will feel God’s strength, which restores life and returns the enthusiasm of faith.”
The Gospel reading at the Penance Service was the story of the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and then dried them with her hair. Every time we go to confession, the pope said, “We feel the same compassionate gaze of Jesus” that she did.
Jesus’ love, he said, allowed her to draw near, to demonstrate her repentance and to show her love for Him. “Every gesture of this woman speaks of love and expresses her desire to have an unshakable certainty in her life, that of having been forgiven.”
“Love and forgiveness are simultaneous” in the story of each person, just as in the story of the sinful woman, he said. “God forgave her for much – for everything – because He loved her much.”
Through Jesus, the pope said, God took the woman’s sins and “threw them over His shoulder, He no longer remembers them.”
Pope Francis wrote in a letter that he grants a Jubilee Indulgence from God “who welcomes and forgives, forgetting completely sins committed” for those who “make a brief pilgrimage to the Holy Door. . . as a sign of the deep desire for true conversion.. .linked, first and foremost, to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist with a reflection on mercy. It will be necessary to accompany these celebrations with the profession of faith and with prayer for [Pope Francis] and for the intentions that [he bears in his] heart for the good of the Church and of the entire world.”
This indulgence is also granted to those for whom it is impossible to enter a Holy Door and to those who perform the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
The Face of Mercy
Mercy is God’s greatest quality and His mercy is unfathomable because He continually forgives our sins for which we have true sorrow and a firm purpose of amendment. God also calls us to forgive one another and to be merciful to others by practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
Regarding the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote in his Papal Bull, The Face of Mercy, “I am especially thinking of the great apostle of mercy, Saint Faustina Kowalska. May she, who was called to enter the depths of divine mercy, intercede for us and obtain for us the grace of living and walking always according to the mercy of God and with an unwavering trust in His love.” (The Face of Mercy 24).
The Pope related how Jesus said to Faustina, “Before I come as the just Judge, I am coming first as the King of Mercy. Before the day of justice arrives, there will be given to people a sign in the heavens … This will take place shortly before the last day.” (The Face of Mercy 83).
Pope Francis preached in a homily, “The Holy Year must keep alive the desire to know how to welcome the numerous signs of the tenderness which God offers to the whole world and, above all, to those who suffer, who are alone and abandoned, without hope of being pardoned or feeling the Father’s love,” he continued. “A Holy Year to experience strongly within ourselves the joy of having been found by Jesus, the Good Shepherd who has come in search of us because we were lost. A Jubilee to receive the warmth of His love when He bears us upon His shoulders and brings us back to the Father’s house. A year in which to be touched by the Lord Jesus and to be transformed by His mercy, so that we may become witnesses to mercy.” (Homily April 11, 2015).
In the final paragraph of The Face of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote, “I present, therefore, this Extraordinary Jubilee Year dedicated to living out in our daily lives the mercy which the Father constantly extends to all of us.”
Works of Mercy
So, let us live out the mercy which the Father constantly extends to all of us by practicing the works of mercy – the spiritual and corporal works of mercy – such as visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, consoling the sorrowful and praying for the living and the dead. Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, that we will be judged by our works of mercy because “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
Jesus also told St. Faustina, “I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to absolve yourself from it.” (Diary 742). Jesus wants us to be merciful in word, prayer and deed.
St. Faustina said, “For there are three ways of performing an act of mercy: the merciful word, by forgiving and by comforting; secondly, if you can offer no word, then pray – that too is mercy; and thirdly, deeds of mercy. And when the Last Day comes, we shall be judged from this, and on this basis we shall receive the eternal verdict.” (Diary 1158).
Jesus told St. Faustina, “Write this for many souls who are often worried because they do not have the material means with which to carry out an act of mercy. Yet spiritual mercy, which requires neither permissions or storehouses, is much more meritorious and is within the grasp of every soul. If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain my mercy on the day of judgment. . . . Oh, if only souls knew how to gather eternal treasures for themselves, they would not be judged, for they would forestall my judgment with their mercy.” (Diary 1317).
The Day of Justice
In our Culture of Death, we see and read about militant Muslims on a barbaric rampage across the world killing innocent people; acts of terror throughout the world; serial mass murders and mother murderers of their own children.
These are great evils that the world has never experienced to this extent before. Other great evils include the dissolution of marriage and the family through no-fault divorce and legalized same-sex relationships; anti-life evils such as contraception, abortion, embryonic experimentation, infanticide and so-called “physician assisted suicides” and “euthanasia” killings, unjust wars and genocides; sex trade and drug trade and addictions; ecological destruction and business and political corruption. Never has God been more disbelieved, ignored, disobeyed and blasphemed.
Do you also notice the judgments or punishments that God is allowing in His justice from both nature and humanity because of these evils? These sins cry out to heaven for God’s vengeance!
St. John Paul II said, “God, in fact, is not indifferent before good and evil; He enters mysteriously the scene of human history with His judgment which, sooner or later, will unmask evil, defend the victims, and indicate the way of justice…. The object of God’s action is never ruin, pure and simple condemnation, the annihilation of the sinner.” (Address September 10, 2003). We must implore God for mercy before He enters with His justice.
Jesus told St. Faustina, “I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of [sinners]. But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of my visitation. . . .” (Diary 1160). “While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fount of my mercy. . . .” (Diary 848). “He who refuses to pass through the door of my mercy must pass through the door of My justice.” (Diary 1146).
Jesus told her, “I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to my Merciful Heart. I use punishment when they themselves force me to do so; my hand is reluctant to take hold of the sword of justice. Before the Day of Justice I am sending the Day of Mercy. (Diary 848, 1146, 1160, 1588). These rays shield souls from the wrath of my Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him.” (Diary 299).
He also told her, “Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of my Mercy.” (Diary 699). “I will likewise protect the persons who will honor and trust in my Mercy.” (Fr. Sopocko). Jesus said, “I will save those cities and houses in which this Image will be found.” (Fr. Sopocko).
So, let us hold off the Day of God’s Justice by recognizing this time of His Visitation and the Day of His Mercy. Let us rely upon His promise and protect ourselves by displaying and venerating His image of Divine Mercy, praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and by practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
Host a Visitation of the Divine Mercy Image
Please prayerfully consider hosting a Visitation of the Divine Mercy Image to celebrate the Year of Mercy. We will help you with training and telephone support. We will ship you the image and Divine Mercy devotional materials with booklets for a Eucharistic Celebration Year of Mercy Prayer Service.
The booklet is a handbook to help the congregation to celebrate a Prayer Service consisting of Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, with ongoing confessions, a talk, prayers for mercy, Benediction and the veneration of the image.
The Visitations will also include the corporal and spiritual works of mercy by taking the image to visit the sick, the prisoners, and those in nursing homes, hospitals and schools, etc.
We expect many requests for Visitations so, if you would like to host a Visitation, please let us know as soon as possible by visiting our website at www.JKMI.com and emailing us your contact information with your complete mailing address. We will then send you two copies of the booklet, Eucharistic Celebration of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy with a Visitation of the Divine Mercy Image, one for you and one for your Pastor with further instructions.
Thank you for your consideration.
Pope Francis has composed a special prayer for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. In the prayer, the Holy Father entreats the Lord to make the Jubilee of Mercy a year of grace so that the Church, “with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed, and restore sight to the blind.”
Lord Jesus Christ,
You have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father,
and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him.
Show us your face and we will be saved.
Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money;
the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things;
made Peter weep after his betrayal,
and assured Paradise to the repentant thief.
Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the
Samaritan woman:
“If you knew the gift of God!”
You are the visible face of the invisible Father,
of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy:
let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified.
You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness
in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error:
let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God.
Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing,
so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord,
and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor,
proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed,
and restore sight to the blind.
We ask this through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy,
you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.
Amen.
Dan Lynch Apostolates, promoting devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Jesus King of All Nations, Divine Mercy, Our Lady of America and Saint John Paul II
Visit our website at www.JKMI.com e-Mail us at JKMI@JKMI.com
If you have any questions please call us at 802-524-5350.
May Our Lady of Guadalupe keep you under the mantle of her protection and may the Reign of Jesus King of All Nations be recognized in your heart!